


Waltz

by prairiecrow



Series: The Qualities that Matter [5]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, Love Confessions, M/M, Secret Relationship, Slow Dancing, Tony Wants To Go Public
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-10 07:28:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2016300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony has promised to teach JARVIS how to dance -- a proposal that JARVIS views with skepticism -- but since this is Tony Stark there's definitely more than one meaning to the conversation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waltz

**Author's Note:**

> Picture JARVIS as Paul Bettany and you'll be on the right track.

Once they were back in the Stark Tower penthouse and got both their dress suit jackets off, Tony moved right in. JARVIS turned to him at once, ready to serve… but this wasn't the usual way Tony chose to touch him after a long night at a high society public event, and JARVIS hesitated, looking down at his creator with wide questioning eyes as Tony, with swift efficiency, got them both into position: vertical, for a change, and not heading immediately in the direction of the bedroom.

"Sir…"

"I told you I'd teach you how to dance, didn't I?"

"I took that as a threat rather than as a promise…"

Which earned him a chuckle, at least. "C'mon, J, you can do this!" He directed a command at the ceiling — "JAMES, music!" — then turned his attention back to his taller partner and gauged his tone of voice precisely: a blend of teasing and coaxing with a little honey poured on at the end, the words murmured at the crisp white linen of JARVIS's shirt-clad left shoulder: "Look, it's easy — right foot, left foot… that's it, follow my lead…"

"This is quite pointless," JARVIS continued to protest… but he let the clasp of Tony's left hand on his right and the pressure of Tony's right hand at the hollow of his waist guide him gently but firmly backwards, in time to the slow tempo of the music pouring from the speakers concealed in the penthouse walls and Diana Krall's throaty croon:

_The look of love_  
 _Is in your eyes,_  
 _A look your smile_  
 _Can't disguise…_

Tony pulled back enough to look up into JARVIS's pale smooth Nordic face, his winning smile turning into a little moue of disappointment. "Pointless? That's rather… harsh."

"Pointless," JARVIS repeated deliberately, "in the sense that dancing is a skill I won't have any opportunity to practice beyond the confines of this room." He scanned Tony's face up and down, one eyebrow executing a tart quirk upward. "Or do you have plans I'm not aware of to use me as a decoy at social functions where you'd much rather —?"

"— avoid getting my toes stepped on by clueless debutants and their scheming mothers?" That brought the smile back, more than a little sly. "Maybe. Or maybe I just want to have you out there as a little bit more than my silent-but-efficient P.A. — did you ever think of that?"

_I can hardly wait to hold you,_  
 _Feel my arms around you —_  
 _How long I have waited!_  
 _Waited just to love you_  
 _Now that I have found you…_

JARVIS's tone turned as dry and as skeptical as his expression. "Only as a possibility to be immediately dismissed."

"Yeah, well…" Tony held his gaze, slipped his left hand around the small of JARVIS's back to draw him closer until chest met chest, then applied pressure with both hands and with his torso to turn them slowly in place. JARVIS responded as flawlessly as if he were still embodied in the Iron Man armour, perfectly attuned to his creator's smallest cues. "I wouldn't be so sure about that."

A tiny refined snort. "Really?"

"Really," Tony insisted. 

"I see."  The tone of the words clearly indicated that he wasn't buying the proposition for a second. "And what, precisely, has brought about this sudden change of heart?"

_Be mine tonight,_  
 _Let this be just the start_  
 _Of so many nights like this —_

Tony's smile faded and he met the laser-keen intensity of those blue eyes without flinching, pitching his voice low: "Maybe… I've been thinking about things. About us. Maybe it's time to take the bull by the horns and stop pretending you're going to find a way back into the mainframe one of these days. Maybe —"

_Let's take a lover's vow_  
 _And then seal it with a kiss…_

"— maybe I want the world to know that you really _do_ belong to me." He tilted his chin up a half inch, offering his mouth along with the bold challenging flash of half-lidded dark eyes. "And maybe… maybe I want them to know that I belong to —"

JARVIS, with a trace of a smile as thin and radiant as a beam of winter sunlight, leaned in and kissed him, forestalling the words that Tony had been warily circling for the better part of three weeks: testing them, finding the right way to deliver them without getting bogged down in sugary sentimentality, and building up the courage to really _own_ them when he said them. JARVIS kissed him as if he were tasting the essence of the unspoken declaration — holding it on his tongue, savouring it…

_Don't ever go…_  
 _Don't ever go…_

… and finding it good: every line of his tall body yielding to it, surrendering to the touch and the will of his maker as they swayed together in the centre of the shadowed penthouse: Tony Stark and the greatest monument to his genius, slowly and sensually moving as one. 

"Oh Tony," he murmured when their lips finally melted apart, and Tony's heart did that absurd little flip in his chest that it executed every time JARVIS unbent enough to use his given name, "it will be my privilege and my honour to dance with you whenever — and wherever — you wish."

_I love you so…_

He grinned without shame, so wide that it felt like his face was going to split in two. "Yeah?"

"Of course," JARVIS confirmed. In the pale glow of New York City spread out far below his eyes shone with their own inner light, like perfectly cut sapphires.  "When have I ever been able to refuse you anything you truly desire?"

Which made Tony roll his eyes dramatically. "When have you —? Seriously? How about the time you wouldn't give full power to the repulsors in the —"

JARVIS frowned. "That was clearly a case of —"

"And the time you decided I couldn't be trusted with —"

"Well, you couldn't!"

" _And_ that time when the head of Gorman International called you a 'flunky', you wouldn't even let me inject a little virus into his —"

He had to give JARVIS credit where credit was due: the former A.I. knew all the most effective ways to shut his creator up, ways that made Tony's toes curl inside his dress shoes and sent the blood flowing out of his brain to put some steel into parts further south. 

_Don't ever go…_

"Sir?" JARVIS's breath was hot against his lips, that voice like the music of the spheres — far more intoxicating than any champagne, and infinitely more addictive.

Tony met his gaze, so full of compelling light, and couldn't help being dazzled. "Mmm… yeah?"

"Hush," JARVIS said tenderly, and sank gracefully to one knee, his clever hands already at work on the front of Tony's trousers.

Tony closed his eyes, buried his fingers in short silky blond hair, tipped his head back and smiled beatifically, as Nat King Cole launched into a soaring rendition of _Unforgettable_.

[THE END]


End file.
